Everything we know about the world comes from theory: gravity, electricity, and radioactivity have transformed our lives and powered some of humanity’s greatest achievements. But there’s one more fundamental force of nature that remains deeply mysterious: the Strong force. It’s the force that binds atomic nuclei together, overcoming the repulsion between positively charged protons. Despite its power, it’s the least understood of all the forces in the universe. As a theoretical physicist, I work on developing a deeper theory of the Strong force, just as Newton once theorized gravity. By predicting the outcomes of high-energy collisions between electrons and protons (like those that will happen at the upcoming Electron-Ion Collider), we can uncover how protons are built, how matter got its mass, and what the universe looked like a microsecond after the Big Bang. Understanding the Strong force won’t just solve age-old questions in physics — it could unlock entirely new realms of technology, just as the theory of electricity eventually led to smartphones and artificial intelligence.